For regular meetings, St. Michael's Episcopal Church is located at 2025 Bellefonte Drive, Lexington. Visitors are welcome.

Meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month at various locations TBA.

Purple phacelia (Phacelia bipinnatifida) deserves a place in every native garden and in the heart of every native gardener. Abundant in the woods of the Kentucky River palisades, it is as local a plant as we can hope to find. It is stunningly beautiful, and it is easy to grow. It is a biannual that emerges from seeds in mid-spring just when last year’s seedlings have reached maturity and begin to flower. During the summer the seedlings form pretty rosettes of deeply indented leaves which can remain green throughout the winter. By the beginning of May a 12-inch tall globe of many small and delicate light purple blossoms has risen above the leaves, and where competition isn’t too severe, phacelia can easily carpet the floor of a woodland garden. The plants waste no time producing new seeds; indeed, the first ripen even as the last florets are still blooming. Meanwhile, the seeds from the previous year have germinated to begin the cycle all over again.

Purple phacelia is a plant of deciduous woods and its frequent occurrence on our river palisades would indicate that it likes limestone soils. But in my garden it grows under pines and hemlocks where it is dark all year and the soil is more acidic. Seeds that have ventured out into full sun have established themselves to form lush rosettes ready to bloom. In other words, phacelia is nothing if not adaptable. The one condition it may balk at is too much moisture.

Admittedly, purple phacelia can be too much of a good thing. While most of the thousands of seedlings that emerge will eventually crowd each other out, many move into the space of other garden plants and become a weed. A weed, of course, is just a plant viewed by humans as growing in the wrong place. The bees and bumblebees that seek out phacelias for nectar see it quite differently. Still, to be enjoyed in a garden, phacelia requires some control. The easiest way to achieve this is to pull up most flowering plants before the seeds have fully ripened and the plant is about to die. Also, with their shallow annual root systems, the survivors of the intra-species competition are readily weeded out before they bloom, whenever they are found in an unsuitable spot. Purple phacelia gives easy access to gardening joy.

-- Beate Popkin, President

All new members and those renewing at the "wilder" or "wildest" level will receive a free DVD of the updated how-to film Wild About Wildflowers.

We have included sources that carry non-native plants as well as natives. We want to support our local businesses, and encourage their promotion of native plants. Shooting Star Nursery, Georgetown, Ky., only 1/2 hour from Lexington, mail-order and local retail, carries a very large selection of plants native to the US. Michler's Gardens and Greenhouses, Lexington, Ky., carries many plants native to the US. Springhouse Gardens, Nicholasville, Ky., off Harrodsburg Rd., 4 miles south of Man-o-War, carries some plants native to the US. Dropseed Nursery, near Louisville, Ky., carries plants of local genotype from Kentucky, southern Indiana and southern Ohio. Highland Moor Nursery, Midway, Ky., carries some natives of local genotype. Mostly a wholesale nursery, but sells retail at some farmer's markets, and may ship to retail customers. Porterbrook Native Plants, Racine, Ohio, 3 hrs. from Lexington, carries plants native to the mid-Appalachian states, will ship upon request. Missouri Wildflower Nursery, mail-order source. Focus is on plants native to Missouri, many of which are also native to Kentucky.

These are some places you can visit in and around Central Kentucky to see native habitat and vegetation. Some are only open by appointment. Others have scheduled guided tours.